Paisley, Harold: Salvation Needful 2Tim 1

In Timothy chapter one. if you have your testament with you, Second Timothy chapter one, the words of the, the aged apostle, verse nine: Who hath saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. I've read that just for this confession of this aged disciple, as he wrote to Timothy, he said, who saved us. What a delightful thing that is, to be amongst the number who can say, who saved us. Jeremiah chapter eight, for the other reading. The eighth chapter of the prophecy of Jeremiah. Verse twenty. Jeremiah chapter eight and verse twenty. The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. Now the Lord will bless the reading of these two portions of his word. One of the things that we always do when we come to preach the gospel is to divide our audience into two groups. In the religious world, and even in an evangelical world, men fail to set before their audience the two great processions that are moving in the direction of eternity. One, alas, is a crowded way, the Savior said, Matthew seven, wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be that go in thereat. And that broad road never was so crowded as it is this evening. Millions walk together there. But there is another way that leads to heaven, and on that road are many races and colors and kinds of people, and some have just started. We were speaking to some a few days ago that have just commenced on their pilgrim pathway, and many of us are perhaps getting near the end of it. But everyone that is going to heaven is able to say, who saved us. I'm going to speak for a little while about these two groups, those who are saved, and many of them are here this evening, likely the greatest number in this gospel meeting can say who saved us. We came, as we were reminded, to the golden text, the Magna Carta of all preaching, and we believed that on the cross the Lord Jesus gave himself in our guilty place, and we got to see the truth of substitution, that he died for me, that I might live. And the promise of God was plain. Whosoever believeth in him, not praying to him, but trusting in him, hath on the authority of the book everlasting life. Happy are those in the company whose God is the Lord and who are saved and going to heaven. But I want to particularly preach to the second group, to the unsaved here this evening, those who are in this group in Jeremiah chapter eight at the close of it, we are not saved. Alas, this solemn verse says the harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved. Whatever other truth may be here, we can see that it applies to those whose opportunities have gone, whose time, as far as this world is concerned, has ended. And while we meet here in the quietness this Saturday night of this school to preach the gospel, there is a world not so far away from us where men are crying in hopeless despair. The harvest has passed. The summer has ended, and we are not saved, and we will never be saved. It's too late. I have always preached and believed that while a man is living in the world, there is the possibility that he may be saved. And hence, as we go to hospitals and places where we're invited to speak to dying men, it's been my privilege on many occasions to kneel beside men that were dying, businessmen, the city of Toronto, that had no connection with the Lord's people at all, but had sent for me at the end of their journey, and I have knelt down beside them, and I have quoted these golden words of John three and sixteen. People would say, my, that's a helpless thing to do. A man has sinned away his day of grace. Never say that to me about anyone. I'm a strong believer that while a man is living and breathing air, there is the possibility that he may be saved before he goes over the boundary line. But one moment over the boundary line, it's too late. Young man, if your life were ending tonight along the highway, and some may end like that, if your journey, young woman, was coming to an end tonight, where would you be in eternity? It's heaven or hell when the journey's done. And it's too late, three minutes, one moment out of the body to ever be saved. One of the things that always alarms me when I'm about to preach the gospel is that God would impress upon me the seriousness of the great gulf and the tragedy of anyone in our gospel meeting, a child of many prayers, a dear girl that we love, those who are in their sins would land on the wrong side of that fixed gulf and be lost, not for the years of time alone, but for eternity. We are not saved. You know, if you're not saved tonight, be thankful that the whole verse doesn't apply to you at this moment. The harvest has passed, the summer has ended, and we are not saved. That could be true for every sinner here, not for one or two, but for every sinner here before another rising sun. The Lord is coming, the door is closing, and if the Master riseth tonight and shuts the door and the last soul is saved in connection with the church age, oh, how many will be outside that are in this gathering, crying in their bedroom, the harvest has passed and the summer has ended, and I am not saved, and I will never be saved, never. I have lost my soul, and the door is shut. A famine has come for the preaching of the gospel in Nova Scotia after the Lord has come. No gospel hymns, no open Bible, no cheering notes of the gospel John three and sixteen, past forever, and I'll never be saved. I've lost my opportunities. We are not saved. Now, they think for you that the whole verse doesn't apply to you at this moment, but these sad words are true about many here. We are not saved. Should I say before we approach it for a moment, the words of the Lord in the cool of the day in Genesis chapter three and verse nine, when he came into the garden, he said, where art thou? Because there's some people, and they don't know whether they're saved or lost. They're mixed up, and they cannot find their way. If you're not sure tonight, make sure work before another twenty minutes. Where you will be in eternity is the only thing that really matters when the last day has come. I want to say this is the big thing. It's a grand thing to have these Bible readings, to meet with the Lord's people. It's a delightful thing to listen to teaching and to move around in fellowship with the people of God. But the vital thing tonight at the close of this day is this, to be sure that your soul is saved, and heaven will be your home, dear boy. Will you miss it forever and waken up where hope will never come? Lost from a Christian home, a tragedy, to perish in your sins, we are not saved. Where art thou? Are you prepared to come out into the open tonight? Are you prepared to emerge from among the trees of the wood and the many hindrances, and to stand confessed in this gathering? I'm a lost sinner. It's true what the men are preaching. I have no experience of Christ. I cannot go back to a time when, as a lost sinner, I came to the cross by faith. My heart was melted, and I saw that one whom I had never seen was prepared to die in my stead. I love that old hymn, there was one that was willing to die in my stead that a soul so unworthy might live. And the path to the cross he was willing to tread, all the sins of my life to forgive. And every saved person here, we remember the day that we traced his path by faith. I always knew for the world he was slain upon the tree, but there was a night when I realized it was in my place condemned he stood. I love that old hymn of Philip Bliss, bearing shame and scoffing rude, in my place condemned he stood. I would rather be able to say that tonight as the, the governor of Nova Scotia, to stand on the simple platform and be able to say this Saturday night on the eve of the Lord's Day, in my place condemned he stood, sealed my pardon with his blood. So wonder we don't all shout here tonight, hallelujah. What a savior. Oh, what a savior is Jesus our Lord. Not saved. And here's the first point I have. Not saved and salvation so needful. There's many things that are not needed to go to heaven. To live in this life, there are things that are needful. You need an education. You need a degree to get into the schools. You need, eh, some future before you in life. There are many needs, the need of health, and the need of home, and the need of comforts, and the need of a thousand things. But you can go to heaven without education, without wealth. You can go to heaven without friends. You can die at the back of the ditch and go to heaven, but friend, inside those gates you'll never be if you're not born of the Spirit and washed in the blood. The old hymn writer says, 'Tis only blood-washed ones are there, the ransom and forgiven. If I could look, by divine grace, upon the brow here, upon the heart of every man and woman and boy and girl, I wonder how many here have the mark of that precious blood, have a scarlet line hanging at their window. The blood is the sign that marks them as thine. Tell me, is that precious blood precious to you as you sit here this evening? I've been saved a long time, and I can look up tonight into the eye of God, and I can say, thank God for the precious blood that flowed on Calvary's tree. We preach the blood wherever we go. Do you know something in all the countries I have visited, and there are many evangelical works and many preachers, you know, the old fashioned type of preaching of the precious blood to rescue and to save is dying out. When I started out preaching up in the mu- in the hills there, County Antrim, they, there's a woman going out one night, and she said to me, I, I like to listen to you. You must be the best PP preacher they have. I said, don't call me Plymouth Brethren. That was the nickname we had. Oh no, son, she says, you're a precious blood preacher. And I hope to finish my day as a precious blood preacher. The blood that he flowed on Calvary for you and for me, that precious blood can cleanse you from your sin, however vile you may be. I was speaking to a drug pusher in Los Angeles the other evening, sitting with his little common law wife, fourteen years of age, well dressed. I sat down beside him, and he said, my sin and my associations, how could I make it? I said, there's one that can cleanse you, and there's a power that can keep you. No wonder Wesley wrote, he breaks the power of cancelled sin. He sets the prisoner free. His blood can make the virus clean. His blood bails for me. Maybe there's a young man here with a stained record. Maybe there's a girl here with sin in your life that your mother knows nothing about. Maybe there are thieves and adulterers here. I'm not going into the long list of sin. The moral issue today is tremendous in North America. The wickedness of man is great upon the earth, and young people get drawn into the whirlpool of sin tonight, defiled and filthy with sin. Maybe your tongue's filthy. Who can tell? And you're held captive. There's not a sin that you have committed, but you can rise out of this meeting, cleansed from every stain, justified freely by his grace through the redemption as in Christ Jesus. You can leave this meeting another way, not saved and salvation so needful. Never get to heaven without. When the last day comes and the end is drawing to you, and loved ones are weeping in the shadows, and they're saying goodbye. It's the big day has come. If the Lord be not come, we'll all have to face that big day. I would like to live my little life, the rest of it, so that when that big day would come, I would lie down in perfect peace with God and man, and know beyond the shadow of a doubt that when my eyes are closed and I say goodbye, I'll be at home, the one I have loved so long. Friend of mine, have you hope beyond this fleeting world? Not saved and salvation so needful. Not saved and salvation purchased so dearly. We've been thinking about it. Men don't put much value on salvation, but in order that God would bring it here within your reach, he might have passed us by. When angels sinned, greater than we, mighty beings that sang the anthems in the sky at creation, all the sons of God shouted for joy. Glorious beings that surrounded him, but they sinned, and God excommunicated. And we learn today he laid not hold upon them to save them or to deliver them. And as we preach here, there are angels that once were in heaven around the Lord Jesus, and they're in hell, and they'll never be saved, never. Why did he pass them by? That thou should set thy love on me, be the God thou. Darkness to my intellect, sunshine to my heart. I often wonder that God looked upon a world of lost men. I like what our brother preached tonight, because as far as I'm concerned, I'm unlimited in my look at the world, and I believe in an unlimited provision, reaching out to the vilest wrecks of Adam's race, whatever he may be tonight. I'm not afraid to go to that man and say to him, Christ died for the ungodly, and if you believe in the Lord Jesus, you can be saved from hell and the lake of fire. Purchase so dear. One of the Godhead three must lay aside the outward environment of the skies, descend from the radiant throne above in lightning haste, descend into the scene to be born of the Virgin, and to lie yonder in a manger dark and bare, that his feet might tread the pilgrim pathway and live for thirty years in the most despised place on earth. I was preaching in Nazareth some time ago, and I came out in the afternoon with the leading brother in the meeting, and I said to him, is there anywhere around here that might remind us where the Lord Jesus was? He said, my father was a carpenter, and his father was a carpenter, and his father was a carpenter back to the thirteenth century. He pointed up through the rain that Sunday afternoon to the caves on the hillside of Nazareth, and he said, was always said that Joseph and Mary and the Lord Jesus, with the others in the home, they lived in a cave on the hillside. Whether it's true or not, I looked up there and tears filled my eyes. To think that he whose goings forth were of old from the days of eternity would live for thirty years in a, in the site of a cave and work with his hands as a carpenter at the bench. And I thought, as I looked there, there was a day when he turned the key in the door of the little house where he worked. His days of carpentering was over, and he went down the road to preach the gospel and to go to Calvary for you and for me, to wear the thorns upon his brow and to hang upon those cruel nails that calibrate the skull. But standing there, I said to my wife, you know, it moves me. I know people say there's nothing there. It moved me. Do you know why? I could picture in my mind the Lord of glory in his bare feet going up over skull hill to allow men to kneel up to the tree. Was for you and for me was there on that dark and dreadful day. The love that Jesus had for me to suffer on that cruel tree that I, a ransomed soul, might be is more than tongue can tell. He purchased it so dearly, laid down his life, gave all that he had, bowed his head in grief and death, lay alone in the garden tomb. The Savior died for our transgressions and was wounded that we might be delivered, and rose again, and if he's not risen, we're wasting our time. Close the book, give it all up. But he's risen, he's beyond the cloud, a man in the glory, coming soon, able to save, able to keep, able to reach you tonight. You know, the thing that reaches the heart of a sinner is this, to realize that on that old cross, Calvary, the Lord Jesus gave himself for me. Have you s- have you seen that? Have you accepted that personally for yourself? It'll change your whole outlook. It'll bring peace that the world cannot give. It was purchased so dearly. Don't pass it by. Not saved and salvation so needful. Not saved and salvation purchased so dearly. Not saved and salvation's terms presented so clearly. There are many things in the Bible that are unclear. Those of us who read it and study it, the longer we read it, the more difficult things we find in it. To reconcile certain scriptures and work it out, it seems so difficult. But I want to tell you there's one thing that's written large in every type, in the poetic books, in the prophecies, in the gospels, in the epistles, right through the book. What is it? How a poor sinner down on earth can be saved and get to heaven without money and without Christ, stated so clearly. Listen to these words again. I was standing in the open air, trembling as a boy, and the old man beside me said, if you have any difficulty, quote John three and sixteen. Hope you don't think of a difficulty now, but I'm, I'm quoting it because you have a difficulty. You're not saved. For God so loved the world. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever takes you in tonight. One night I was preaching, I said it takes in James Montgomery. It takes in Lily Smith. It takes in Matty Murphy. And when the meeting was over, this boy came up and he said, I'm Matty Murphy. It's taken me in. I had to write note that night. Doesn't matter what your name is, who you are, where you're from. Doesn't matter whether you're a Christian's child or one that has never heard the gospel. Tonight, whosoever believeth in him. You're not asked to join a company, not asked to pay a penny, not asked to wait behind, not asked to sign a document or raise your hand. Sitting on the seat tonight, in the depth of your heart, will you own right now, I am a guilty sinner. But Jesus died for me. Take it in, my life for yours, if you're not saved in the seat where you sit. The Bible says, he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting. Hath means he has it right now. He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. Saved or lost, there's only the two ways to look at it. Not saved and salvation presented so clearly. My last point tonight will be this, not say, and salvation's day passed so quickly. Quickly passed? Time flies. Hardly take it there. Putting up a tent in Sarnia in two weeks. When I walked through the door of that tent, the old tents I preached in, I pitched myself, and sometimes only two of us were there to pray. Some of the outstanding meetings of my lifetime. I prayed alone, no man to pray with me. I pitched those tents and dr- drove the stakes and set it up and prayed that God would bring the people. In early days, they were so poor, they walked over the, the, the grass, many of them, in their bare feet. One night, when I was twenty years of age, I know what kind of preaching I did. When I left that tent, I heard the cries of people, and round the back of the tent and knelt in the wind bushes were young men. Some of them are preachers today, and others are with Christ. Some became elders, and they were knelt in the grass in a summer night, crying for Christ and salvation. Would to God we could seize hand. When I move into that little tent, or whatever kind, big tent, whatever it is in Sarnia, two weeks, it'll be the seventeenth tent that I've walked through to preach the gospel in my lifetime. I'd like you to pray God would help me, give me energy, courage, and the brother little fellow that's with me starting out, that he might joy preach the gospel. Nothing like salvation's days passing so quickly. One by one, they go away. Thousands of people that we have preached to are in eternity. There's one thing I know. I have had many failures, a man. There's one thing I know. When I stand before the Lord Jesus, he never charged me. That all those years that I didn't tell people the truth with all my heart. Listen, I wouldn't like to go to the Bema, and the Lord would say, those gospel meetings you didn't warn, nor did you point them to the save. The only thing that's worthwhile when you come to evangelize is to get downhill, forget the context of the passage. I do. Turn off all the other things that rise in our mind. These people are simple souls that are going to eternity, and salvation's days passing so quick, and the coming of the Lord so near. I want to ask you a question. What will you do with Jesus, which is called Christ? God grant that you might accept him here and now. Shall we pray? Father, we bow in the name of the Lord Jesus. Our hearts are touched at the love of the Savior and the love of God, his Father, to send them. The Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. We thank thee that at Calvary he became the sin-bearing substitute and paid the supreme price, laid down his life for the little flock. We thank thee we're numbered with the sheep. We bless thee that thou hast saved our precious souls by sovereign grace, through faith alone in our Lord Jesus Christ. But in this company, this large company tonight, we see many children and many who are not saved on the way to hell. Oh God, save our families, we pray. Our greatest joy has been to point our own children to Christ, and it's a great joy to see the children saved when they're young. We don't want them to get professions, but oh God, with thy gracious spirit, we do pray that he himself might plead with some girl tonight, some boy before they sleep in their bed, that they may tap their mother's room, tell the story saved by grace. We long to see it. We cannot do it. We're helpless. Salvation is in thy good hand, for thou art a God of love, matchless grace, desiring not the death of any, save in this meeting here and crown the Bible readings with precious souls won and willed to the Savior, whose love was strong as death. We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.